Kate is Strange
by Staynobloom
Summary: Pretty much everyone chooses to kiss Chloe when playing Life is Strange. But what happens when Kaitlin Witcher, a staunchly heterosexual Youtube letsplayer, refuses to kiss Chloe and gives Max to Warren? Chloe materializes in the real world during a storm to take revenge of course. [Yuri][piddleass]
1. Chapter 1

Kaitlin Witcher sighed and pushed the keyboard away. She was finally finished with her _Life is Strange_ let's play series, and, at this point, was just glad to be done with it. Kaitlin was a mildly popular Youtuber, with almost half a million subscribers. Though, lately, she was finding herself struggling to keep up with views and audience retention. Even with nearly 500,000 subscribers, her latest videos could hardly crack 10,000 views.

Kate frowned, staring again into the familiar main menu screen of _Life is Strange_. It was the latest game all of the biggest let's players on Youtube were doing. She had thought perhaps getting into let's plays would help her channel become relevant again, but, to her disappointment, _Life is Strange_ hadn't gone well for her at all. Her new foray into let's plays failed to garner the sort of views and relevance she'd hoped for. Even her longtime fans complained in the comments section that they didn't like the series and didn't want to see her play video games.

She scoffed now, thinking of the comment section. Sometimes it seemed like all her fans were just a bunch of pervs who wanted to see her prance around showing cleavage, acting cutesy and ditsy like all the other girls on Youtube. Kaitlin really didn't want to resort to _that_ kind of content, though. And she was also criticized for playing the game in an atypical way.

_Life is Strange _was a game of choices, where the player would affect the outcome of the game through the decisions she made. The story in the game followed a protagonist named Maxine Caulfield: a young art school student who discovers she has the power to rewind time, along with dealing with the typical stresses of adolescent girlhood. Max rekindles a friendship with her childhood best friend, Chloe Price, who she'd been estranged from for the last five years. But Chloe has changed a lot since the last time they met, Max discovers – now she's a tall, pretty punk girl with tattoos and piercings and a rebellious attitude.

The game mostly revolves around the relationship between Max and Chloe, and, the player can decide whether or not Max and Chloe's friendship blossoms into romance. Or, the player can choose to romance the male character, Warren. Romancing Chloe is the most popular choice, for obvious reasons. But Kate just wasn't comfortable with that sort of thing. She didn't understand why so many people were mad at her for choosing Warren over Chloe. Wasn't the point of this game to make your _own_ decisions? Kaitlin was a good Christian girl and wasn't so comfortable with... _lesbian stuff_. It's not that she was hateful or intolerant or anything like that. But she was a straight girl, so why should she be pressured into romancing another girl in some dumb game if she wasn't comfortable with it?

Kate shook her head and clicked "exit" on the menu screen to close the application for good and hopefully never think about this stupid game again. _So let's plays are a bust._ She sighed again. _Maybe I should be more click-baity_. As she sat in front of her PC screen, she began concocting an elaborate made-up story in her head about a homeless man masturbating in front of her at the gym. _Yeah, _she thought, _That's good._ _I'll just do fake click-bait stories for views. _Click-bait storytime videos weren't exactly dignified either, but it was better than the future she was now so afraid to think of: a place in time where she was totally irrelevant online, pushing thirty with no real skills, education, or job experience, and with it all, the threat of dying alone looming ever closer.

Invasive thoughts like that could eat away at her. So often she would lie awake at night for hours, dreading the future, afraid of getting older, afraid of her own life passing her by... her looks drying up, her prime reproductive years long behind her, barren-wombed and childless, and Skyler long gone with a younger, prettier girl. She was twenty-six now. She certainly wouldn't be young forever. And she had never worked at a real job a day in her life.

It was straight from high school to wannabe social media star. What was she gonna put on a resume anyway if she ever had to get a real job? "I played _Life is Strange_ online, barely got any views, and romanced the wrong person the entire time?" She would be laughed out of even Wal-Mart or McDonalds with those kinds of credentials. The future scared her so much lately. Maybe all this Internet crap _had _been a colossal waste of time. Maybe she should have taken some time instead to have that family she used to dream about when she was younger.

Sometimes she wondered if her cat-babies were really proper substitutes for love and motherhood, or if she was just a crazy person cradling wild, soulless animals like infants and telling herself over and over again that "everything is normal", all while screaming at the top of her lungs internally, like some kind of schizophrenic Buddhist monk broken beneath the weight and mental strain of a mantra so clearly full of shit. Everything was not normal.

And life really was strange sometimes.

Kaitlin looked again at the icon for _Life is Strange _on her desktop. _You and me both, Max, _she thought to herself. And she thought for a moment what Max would be doing now after the game had ended. Since Kate chose to sacrifice Chloe, Max would probably still be mourning the loss of her best friend – _friend, _and absolutely nothing more! At least now that Chloe was dead, there wouldn't be anymore threat of lesbian stuff happening. Maybe it wasn't such a bad game then. Kaitlin smiled to herself. Yeah, it had been pretty fun overall. Eventually she decided to stop sulking about her views and future and lesbian stuff and headed to the kitchen for a quick late night snack.

The apartment was especially lonely at this time of night. Because of Kate's odd Internet celebrity lifestyle, she wasn't on a normal sleeping schedule. Most people had to get up for work or school early in the morning and slept through the night, like human-beings are supposed to. But since Kate had no real responsibilities or place to be, it was quite common for her to stay up til 4 in the morning playing video games and fooling around online. But it was just her in the apartment now, and the nights were quite lonely. Her two previous roommates had left her recently out of pure fear of being associated with her.

The stalkers scared them all away. As a Youtube storytimer, Kate had an endless parade of "stalkers" who wanted to rape her or something. In reality, Kate really was regularly stalked by overzealous, usually over-weight, "fans" of her Youtube videos. The term "fans" is used loosely here, because her Internet following was mostly made up of middle-aged perverts and potential serial rapists; the prototypical "creepy loner" types who end up on FBI watchlists and are virgins well into their 30s. She understood early on that normal people with social lives, hobbies and families wouldn't spend even one minute of their lives watching an over-grown teenage girl stammer incoherently to a webcam about yoga and cats, and that if she was ever going to attract an audience online, she needed to appeal to the lowest common denominator of society. And, for a while, that worked. She made money. She had a career.

But as a result of her bad decisions, everyone in her life ended up being driven away when they realized she was tantamount to a living masturbatory aid for a legion of out-of-shape weirdos and adult comic book fans. The day Skyler came to her and said "I think we need to take a break for a while" was the day Kaitlin truly knew she would die alone.

So, in short, the apartment was especially lonely at this time of night.

When Kate got to the kitchen, she went into the fridge and took out a can of Dr. Pepper. She had promised herself she would kick the habit and try to lose some weight, but that damn _Life is Strange _game and all that lesbian stuff had her seriously stressed out right now.

She was 130 now and really wanted to get down to 120, as per her New Years resolution, but just couldn't stop stress drinking six-packs of Dr. Pepper two at a time. So she cracked open the soda can, chugged it all in one gulp, and then laid down on the kitchen floor and began sobbing. It was a stormy night, at least. Rain was falling hard against the window, and there were loud cracks of thunder outside, so she could cry as loud as she wanted without worrying about the neighbors hearing and thinking she was being almost raped or almost kidnapped by one of her stalkers again and calling the police.

What was she going to do, really? It was all hitting her again, and Dr. Pepper wasn't helping at all. No, the doctor she probably needed was in a white coat somewhere in a big building with bars on the windows. She had no idea what she would do now. This Internet thing wasn't working out, and now everybody hated her just because she wouldn't lez out in a video game! _I'm a Christian, dammit, _she told herself. _I can't do stuff like that! It's impure! _

For a moment, she wished she could rewind time like Max and go back to her early 20's and start over. Because she had fucked this up royally, she figured, and time was running out. All she could do now was cry and drink Dr. Pepper, and wait for the storm to pass. And what _about_ tomorrow? And the next day? Was she going to be 35, still making clickbait on Youtube for less than minimum wage? What about when she was 40? Maybe being an Internet celebrity wasn't a real career after all. When she was in her early 20's, it was almost like there was no future at all.

Growing up was only something that happened in movies and J.D Salinger novels. But not her, no way. Such a big part of her had believed she would always be 22, and she'd just be a cute little girl Youtuber forever, doing yoga poses showing off her butt, and making up fake storytime videos denigrating the reputation of the homeless. But now, at 26, turning 30 seemed perfectly possible. And turning 40. And 50. And being _really _old. And _dying. _Fuck.

She started breathing really hard, and could feel a panic attack coming on. _Not now, Kate, not now... _her hand was shaking as she tried to take a sip from her 2nd Dr. Pepper of the night, 5th of the overall 24-hour period... _not now, come on Kate, no one's here, don't have a panic attack... your cat can't dial 911 for you. _Then suddenly there was loud _crack _from the other room. It was so loud it shook the entire apartment.

"What the _heck_!?" Kate said out loud and jumped up and ran to her bedroom where the sound came from. Her heart was racing now. But at least the newfound adrenaline was keeping the panic attack at bay.

When she got to her room, it was all filled with smoke, and she could see that the window was shattered and rain was pouring through. _Did lightening strike my window!?_ And all over the room, there were pieces of something... she looked around at the mess on the floor... _what...?... _circuits, and plastic parts, tempered glass, shattered... part of a motherboard. Her heart dropped.

"My computer!" Kate shouted. Now her heart was really racing. That computer was her whole life! How was she going to play video games and surf the Internet now!? She could feel the panic attack taking over her. But then she saw something else, something even stranger, as the smoke began to clear. In the wreckage of the shattered computer, there was a figure... like a person... no it definitely _was _a person. Had one of her stalkers broken into her house and finally come to kill her?

No... she squinted at the figure... it was a _girl. _And now the smoke had fully cleared, and Kate could see the girl plain as day. She was lying on the floor, looking confused, rubbing her head. She had blue hair, tattoos on her arm, a black beanie... Kate's heart dropped. _No... it couldn't be._

"Where am I?" the girl asked groggily.

And the voice was exactly the same. Kate's jaw dropped. It was undoubtedly Chloe, from _Life is Strange_. Or some kind of real life version of her. No, it wasn't video game computerized model at all, but more like the best real life Chloe Price cosplayer in the world: a real human who looked exactly like that video game character!

And that's when Kate couldn't fight off the panic attack anymore. Only this time it fully consumed her. Total darkness took over her vision, and she fell to the floor.


	2. Chapter 2

"Hey, are you okay? Wake up, come on..."

Everything was dark. Kate heard a voice speaking to her. Someone shaking her.

"Oh man, this is hella weird..."

Slowly, Kate opened her eyes and began to come to.

"Ah..." she let out a little coo. The girl from before, the blue haired girl, was holding her and violently shaking her. "Wha... what happened?"

"Hello? Are you awake? Are you okay?"

Kate pushed the girl away and brought herself up to sit on her knees. She rubbed her head, still quite dizzy and confused.

"What happened? Who are you?" Kate asked.

"I was gonna ask you the same thing," the girl responded.

Kate was beginning to remember now. She had been having a panic attack before, and there was a storm and... _my computer!_

She jumped to her feet and started scrounging around the room, totally ignoring the girl, picking up the broken parts of her PC, hopelessly. Once she realized her computer had been totally destroyed beyond repair, she dropped to her knees again and buried her face in her hands.

The window was still broken, it was still dark out and rain was still pouring into the room. And this mysterious girl who looked like a _Life is Strange_ Chloe cosplayer was still in her bedroom. But all Kate could think about now was her broken computer. Without her computer, she couldn't edit and upload a new video, and the Youtube algorithm would punish her with bad SEO, and she would get demonetized, and Susan Wojcicki would beat her up and...

Kate let out a long, drawn out, "Nooooooooooooooo," like Darth Vader at the end of Revenge of the Sith.

"Hey..." the blue haired girl approached Kate and spoke again.

"_You_," Kate snapped, standing and turning around and pointing an accusatory finger at the girl. "You broke my computer! That's a 2,000 dollar computer! Who are you, and why are you in my house!? Are you a stalker coming to kill me!? I'll fight you, okay!?" Kate raised up her little fists defiantly.

"Hey man, I have no idea what you're talking about," the girl said, looking somewhat frightened at Kate's aggression. "I was going to ask if you knew what the hell just happened to me." She furrowed her brow and rubbed her head. "One minute I was with Max and the storm was about to hit Arcadia Bay... then..." she looked as if she was straining to remember. She shook her head. "Then I was here..."

"Max? Arcadia Bay?" Kate said incredulously. It couldn't be. She did look _exactly _like Chloe from the game. If it was a cosplay, it was an impossibly accurate one. She thought about it. _Wait a minute... _something suddenly hit her. _Yes, that must be it!_

Kate pointed at the girl again. "This is a prank, right? For Youtube? Okay, who's behind this? Skyler?" then she yelled, "You got me, okay Skyler? You can give it up now. Come on out and we can get back together," as though speaking to some hidden prankster who was waiting just outside the window.

Both girls stood and waited. Nothing happened. No hidden camera, no Skyler. Kate sighed and slumped over in defeat.

"Do you seriously not know what's going on here either?" the girl asked. "Because I'm kinda freaking out right now."

Kate stood up and looked at the girl again, this time for much longer, really studying her face. She shook her head. It just _couldn't _be. She walked a slow circle around the girl, looking her up and down. It couldn't be, yet it was absolutely unc_anny_.

"What's your name?" Kate demanded.

"It's Chloe," the girl answered. "Chloe Price."

Of course. Kate frowned.

"So like Chloe Price, from Life is Strange?" she said, deadpan.

"From _what_? Just Chloe Price... from Arcadia Bay. In Oregon?"

"Right."

Now Kate had her arms crossed and looked thoroughly unamused. If it wasn't a prank, then this girl _must_ have been some kind of crazed stalker... maybe some obsessed_ Life is Strange_ fan who was pissed that she didn't kiss Chloe in her let's play.

Still... this didn't look _anything _like her typical stalker. Usually her stalkers looked more like they were cosplaying comic book guy from The Simpsons, or the "that which has no life" guy from the World of Warcraft episode of South Park. She never had a female stalker before.

And not only that, but this girl was _beautiful. _Drop dead gorgeous in fact. She could have easily been a model. Why would someone like that be a crazed Internet stalker? It just didn't make sense any way she looked at it.

"I'm just as confused as you obviously are," Chloe said. "I swear I was with my friend right before this... and a storm was about to wipe out our town and... okay, I know that sounds totally insane, but it's true. And then Max..." Chloe stopped and her face went white, as though she'd just remembered something terrible.

"What?" Kate asked, though still sounding as though she didn't believe a word of this.

"Max used the picture to go back in time." Chloe looked down, her face solemn. "She sacrificed me. Does that mean... I'm dead?"

They looked at each other in silence. Rain continued to pour through the broken window. A flash of lightening sent a white glow over Chloe's face for a moment then vanished in a low rumble in the distance. Kate didn't know how to respond. This girl sounded so damn _sincere_. Was she just a really good actor? A good cosplayer? Or could it be... _real?_ Kate shook her head.

No, no, no. Stuff like this doesn't happen outside of video games and anime! And she'd played enough video games and watched enough anime to know all the tropes. She wasn't going to be taken in by this ruse and made into a clumsy, bumbling anime protagonist who summons a magical girl and gets her life turned upside down.

"It's true, I chose to sacrifice Chloe in the game," Kate said, mostly to herself, looking at the floor. "But how do you even know that...? I just uploaded that video a few hours ago."

Chloe furrowed her brow. "What _game? _I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Life is Strange," Kate said. "You're... dressed like the character..." and she trailed off, sounding less and less sure of herself.

"What _character_? Can you just explain this to me in English please, doc? I'm hella confused right now."

"See!" Kate pointed. "You said hella, just like Chloe in the game! You're obviously some kind of cosplayer then."

"_Like Chloe in the game_," she repeated, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

Kate rolled her eyes. "You know what? Fine." she walked around Chloe, left the room, then returned with her phone in hand.

Chloe looked on, curious.

Kate turned on her phone and Internet browser and navigated to her own Youtube channel. She found her Life is Strange let's play and brought up one of the videos.

"Look," Kate said, holding out the phone to show Chloe. Chloe watched as the video played.

"That's... you..." Chloe said, looking at the little box in the corner of the video where Kate's face was displayed as she played and talked about the game.

"Keep watching," Kate insisted. The video continued to play. Then it happened. The Chloe character in the game appeared. And Max. It was the scene where Max and Chloe break into the pool.

The real life Chloe looked utterly confused. "What in the world... that looks like Max... and _me_..." she kept watching.

The pool scene played out. _Don't look so sad, I'm never leaving you. _The video ended and Chloe looked like she'd seen a ghost.

"See? It's just a video game," Kate said.

"Woah, woah, woah, this is seriously getting hella weird." Chloe's head was in her hands and she looked like she was about to have a panic attack herself now. "That was... that was something that actually happened... Max and I had that conversation in private, and..." she clenched her eyes shut and shook her head. "This must be some kind of weird dream. I'm having a bad trip, right?"

"This is gonna make one heck of an entry into my dream journal if you're right about that," Kate said.

"Let me see that again," Chloe demanded, grabbing for Kate's phone.

Kate let her have it and Chloe browsed through the phone, going to another one of Kate's Life is Strange let's play videos and watching.

Kate stood with her arms crossed, watching Chloe as Chloe watched her Youtube videos. If this girl was just pretending, Kate thought, then she was pretty damn good at it, because "Chloe" seemed to be genuinely freaked out by what she was seeing on Kate's phone.

"I don't understand this is at all..." Chloe finally said after going through a number of videos. "This Life is Strange thing... someone made a game about my life... and Max...?" she shook her head.

"It's a pretty popular game," Kate said dryly.

Chloe turned to look at Kate. "And who are you? And what exactly do you have to do with all of this? You're in all of those videos, playing the game."

"I'm Kaitlin Witcher," Kate explained. "I'm just a Youtuber who played the game for a let's play series... I don't have anything to do with it. I didn't make the game or anything."

"Okay. Kaitlin Witcher. And where exactly are we now?" Chloe asked.

"Los Angeles."

"Los Angeles!?" Chloe looked incredulous. Then she stopped and looked like she was thinking for a moment. "Maybe after Max tore up that photo... somehow it sent me to an alternate reality. Oh man, this is hella fucked up," and she collapsed to sit on the floor with her head in her hands.

Kate really didn't know what to make of all this. She hated to admit it, but this girl seemed so sincere, Kate was starting to believe her. Maybe something weird and supernatural _did _happen. Maybe things like that were possible.

A beautiful girl from a video game did seem to just appear out of her exploded computer after it got struck by lightening. Sure, it seemed like the plot to a really bad anime or really, _really_ bad fanfiction, but... Chloe just seemed so genuinely distraught and not at all like a person pretending as a joke.

Even the craziest stalker in the world wouldn't go through all this just to pull some kind of prank on her, right? So Kate decided that, at least for the time being, she'd play along.

Suddenly Chloe's head shot up from her hands. "Wait a minute... maybe Max is still out there in this reality," she exclaimed. She looked up at Kate. "I just have to get back to Arcadia Bay. We can be together again. There's still a chance then if I'm not dead!"

Kate frowned at her and shook her head.

"What?" Chloe asked.

"There is no Arcadia Bay," Kate explained. "That's just a place in the video game."

"Are you for real? Look on any map, man. It's in Oregon. I just need a car and I can... "

Kate shook her head. "No, it's just fiction... you know? As in, not real. A place in a game someone made up. It's not on any map."

Chloe sighed. "Right. Of course. So in whatever reality I've been sent to, there's a video game about my life, and Arcadia Bay totally doesn't exist." she put a hand to her face. "Of course you'd do something like this to me, Max."

"Well..." Kate suggested, reluctant that she was letting herself get sucked into this now. "If you were sent here somehow, maybe there's a way for you to go back."

Chloe's eyes lit up. "Right!" she said. Then, after a moment of thinking: "...And how exactly do I do that?"

Kate frowned. "No idea."

Chloe slumped her head into her hands again. She really did look pitiful. Kate was beginning to feel quite bad for her actually.

"I suppose..." Kate began, and she was kicking herself inside, telling herself to stop even as the words came out of her mouth. "...you could stay here for now. I'm kind of in need of a roommate actually. Just until we can figure out what to do I guess."

Chloe's eyes lit up again. "Really? That would be hella helpful!"

Kate facepalmed. "On one condition. You can't say 'hella' anymore."

Chloe looked like she had just been kicked in the stomach. "Seriously?" she said.

Kate thought about it. It _was_ just a joke. But after thinking it over enough she responded, "Well... yes actually. I can sense it might get old fast."

Chloe hung her head solemnly. "Ahh, well... where can I sleep tonight? I'm hel- I'm really tired. Is this going to be like a one bed situation, or...?

"No!" Kate said, flustered. "You can sleep on the couch for tonight... at least until I get the window fixed in here. There's a 2nd bedroom, but I'm going to sleep in there for now."

"All right, all right. Hopefully I'll wake up and this will all have been a bad dream."

"I'm hoping the same thing," Kate said.

Without another word they both departed to their separate sleeping areas for the night. Kate stood in the doorway of the bedroom for a moment longer to look over the disaster area it had become. The rain was subsiding, but it was still coming through the broken window.

And her precious computer was still shattered into pieces. This had been the craziest day of her life so far, she thought. She wondered if she should try to make a storytime video out of this. Who would believe her though? And for once she wouldn't be just making stuff up when telling a crazy story for a video! The irony! She shook her head.

Was it really possible that Chloe from_ Life is Strange_ had come out of her computer into the real world? This was all too much to comprehend. She closed the door to her room and headed to the other bedroom to sleep for the night. She opened the door to the other bedroom and turned the light on, only to find Chloe already fast asleep in the bed and snoring.

"Hey!" Kate yelled.

Chloe stirred. She turned and looked at Kate, groggily. "Huh?"

"I said you could sleep on the _couch_!"

"Ahh, sorry... I guess I just took a wrong turn and ended up crashing here."

"That doesn't even make sense!"

Chloe sat up more and rubbed her eyes. "Is it really a big deal?"

"Well..." Kate crossed her arms and looked away, her face worked into a pout. "Where am I supposed to sleep now?"

"It's a big bed," Chloe said with a shrug.

Kate scoffed. "Fine, I'll go sleep on the couch."

She turned the light off, closed the door then headed to the couch in the living room. She couldn't believe this girl. She was already totally making herself at home! Whoever this strange blue haired girl really was, she certainly had the same bad manners as the Chloe from the game.

Kate was starting to remember how much she had disliked Chloe on her playthrough of Life is Strange. She remembered when Chloe got caught with the joint in her room and immediately blamed it on Max. And when she wanted to steal money from the handicapped fund at school.

What a rude, tactless jerk! Kate huffed and shook her head. She laid down on the couch and closed her eyes. She was really starting to regret telling Chloe she could stay here. This was going to be the beginning of a total disaster, wasn't it?


	3. Chapter 3

Kate awoke on the couch the following morning with an immense pain in her neck. _Just great_. She had slept badly on the cramped sofa and could barely turn her head now without it hurting. She sat up, rubbing her neck and wincing, and found Chloe sitting on the other couch, staring at her while taking drags on a joint. Kate jumped a little upon seeing the blue haired girl. It hadn't been a dream after all.

"What are you doing?" Kate asked, her voice tired and low. "Were you watching me sleep?"

"Yeah," Chloe said casually, then blew out a puff of smoke. "You looked peaceful. It was kinda nice. Sorry."

"That's really weird... and where did you get that? You can't smoke in here."

Chloe looked at the joint in her hand. "I had it on me. Found it in my pocket this morning. Thank God it survived the trip, huh? Man I really needed to medicate. Weed from another dimension... pretty sick, isn't it?"

"No. No, it's not _sick_. You can't do _drugs _in my apartment if you're going to be my roommate."

"Drugs? It's just weed. Besides we're in California, aren't we? If weed isn't legal in California in this universe, I'm seriously going to flip."

"It's technically legal I guess, but it's still bad to do."

Chloe stopped smoking for a moment and furrowed her brow at Kate. "You're kind of a square, aren't you? Are you one of those conservative Christian chicks? You're just like the Kate back in Arcadia Bay."

"I _am_ a Christian... but I'm not..." she shook her head in frustration, and her neck was really killing her now. "Look, you're not allowed to smoke indoors in this apartment. You could get us both in trouble with the landlord."

"All right, man. It's cool. I didn't know that." Chloe looked across the room at Kate, who was still wincing and rubbing her neck. "Do you want to take a hit? It looks like you didn't sleep very well. It would help." Chloe held out the joint, offering it to Kate.

"No I don't want to _take a hit_!" Kate said incredulously. "And put that out now, seriously."

"Fine, fine," Chloe said. "I better preserve this anyway. I don't exactly have any _connections _around here if you know what I mean."

Kate watched as Chloe snuffed out the joint onto the leg of her jeans and then stuffed it back into her pocket. Kate couldn't believe how crudely this girl behaved. Especially since she was so beautiful. Viewing her in the morning light now, Kate could really see how attractive Chloe was. She might have been the most beautiful human Kate had _ever _seen.

It's like she really was a perfect, pretty video game character come to life. It really wasn't fair. Kate began to feel somewhat insecure now, sitting there with her sprained neck and morning bedhead, still wearing last night's makeup. Did Chloe just wake up looking that insanely gorgeous? Kate really hated girls like that, and, up until now, thought they only existed on deceptive Instagram pages.

"So what's the plan?" Chloe asked, dusting the ash off her jeans. "We've really got to figure out how to get me back to Arcadia Bay, right? And fix the universe?"

"Could I take a shower first?" Kate asked.

"Sure, man. Do you got anything to eat for breakfast by the way? I would die for some Skweekinax."

"I don't know if I have that but help yourself to anything in the kitchen."

"Sweet. And let me get in the shower when you're done."

"Yeah sure. Just... no more smoking, okay? Or step out on the balcony if you really have to."

"Yes sir," Chloe said, saluting Kate as she left the room and headed to the bathroom.

Kate showered and dressed, and then spent around an hour doing her very best makeup job. And she went all out. Eyelashes, blush, contouring her cheekbones; as much as she could do while still trying to make it appear subtle and not at all like she was trying too hard.

It was the first time in quite a while that Kate had spent so much time dolling herself up in the morning. She hated to admit it, and she would _not_ admit it outright, not even to herself, but she wanted to show Chloe that she could be pretty too.

Maybe she couldn't roll out of bed looking this good, but she was a Youtuber dammit. She knew how to make herself look hot for those thumbnails. And watching makeup tutorials was, like, her biggest hobby in life. Being around a new, pretty girl really was bringing out her competitive catty side, even if just a little bit.

Kate entered the kitchen, acting as casual as she could manage. She was wearing some tight jeans and a boy's Legend of Zelda t-shirt that was somewhat baggy on her small frame. And her makeup was flawless, of course. She knew she looked good. Chloe was sitting at the dining room table, half-way through a 2nd helping of cereal and can of Dr. Pepper. She looked up when Kate entered the room.

"Hey–" Chloe stopped, about to put another spoonful of cereal in her mouth, apparently stunned by Kate's appearance.

"Shower's all yours," Kate said coolly.

"Wow, you sure do clean up nice," Chloe said.

"Um, thanks..." Kate began. She looked at the floor shyly and fiddled with the hem of her shirt.

Chloe added: "How long did you spend doing your makeup? I thought you might have fallen in in there." She laughed and finished the bite of cereal. Kate felt her face get hot.

"I didn't spend that long," she said defensively. "I just... forgot to wash my face last night because everything that happened, and I had to do my makeup all over again and everything."

"No, you look really good," Chloe said. "You're really into make up and all that girly crap, huh?"

"Yeah..." Kate answered timidly Now she was feeling more insecure than ever. She didn't think her make up was that noticeable. And after she'd tried so hard to be subtle.

"I've always been a bit of a tomboy," Chloe went on. "I'm really bad with makeup and all that. I usually just throw some eyeliner on. So it's always cool to see a girl who can do it so well."

Kate shrugged, trying to regain her casual composure. "I am a Youtuber so it kind of comes with the territory. Doing makeup and everything."

"Right on. I love the shirt by the way. I'm totally into Zelda too."

"Oh!" Kate said, looking down at her shirt. "Yeah, this was my boyfriend's shirt, but I'm into it too. I pretty much stole this from him."

"Boyfriend?" Chloe asked, suddenly sounding very interested.

"Yeah, Skyler... well, we're actually on a break right now, but he's still my boyfriend. Although we haven't talked in months... he's going to text me back soon actually. I think he will. He's just been busy."

"Hmm," Chloe said, raising and lowering her eyebrows and turning her attention back to the cereal bowl.

Kate frowned. What was that _hmm_ supposed to mean? Skyler _was _still her boyfriend. But Chloe looked skeptical at her explanation. Taking a break was a totally normal thing to do in a relationship.

"Well you can use the shower whenever you want," Kate said, changing the subject. "There are towels in the closet by the bathroom."

"Nice, I'll go do that now," Chloe responded, standing up from the table. "And hey we should talk when I get out of the shower."

"Talk?" Kate asked dumbly, suddenly feeling nervous. She wasn't exactly keen on conversation. "About what?"

Chloe shrugged. "Whatever. I'd like to get to know you better anyway. If we're going to be roommates for now."

"Oh..." Kate said, somewhat taken aback. "Yeah, of course."

"And..." Chloe stood leaning against the sink now, rubbing the back of her head. "I want to thank you. For helping me and everything. I don't know anything about this world, and this has been just about the craziest week of my life as it is. If it wasn't for you, I'd probably be completely freaking out right now. So thanks for being cool to me."

_Wow, _was all Kate could think. Was Chloe actually being polite and grateful? She decided to play it cool.

"Don't mention it," Kate said. "This whole thing is totally crazy. But I did need a roommate... and hey, one just fell right out of the sky, right?"

Chloe smiled. "Yeah, right? Life is strange sometimes, isn't it?"

Kate gave Chloe a blank, dull stare.

"Oh, shit, right, that's the name of that weird game with me in it." Chloe laughed. "Man I must sound hella lame right now... I mean... Ah! Not hella. I didn't mean to say that word."

"Just go take a shower!" Kate snapped.

"Right. Going," and with that Chloe left the room.

Kate shook her head and let out a sigh. She stayed and waited on the couch as Chloe took a very long shower. And, she waited longer still. The shower kept going and going. After so long, Kate started getting annoyed. The water bill wasn't exactly cheap now, with her roommates gone and ad revenue on Youtube dwindling.

She wondered if she should tell Chloe she would have to get a job and help out with the rent. Kate was already late on rent this month, and was having to show more and more cleavage on Twitch just to get donations. If worse came to worse, she might even have to put on her yoga pants and bend over in front of the webcam while acting like she accidentally dropped something she needed to pick up... there were girls who did that sort of thing and made hundreds and thousands of dollars. Anything to get more donations rolling in.

Or if things got _really _dire, she might have to start showing her feet to the camera like all those pervs in her chat were always begging for. Kate let out a disgusted groan. She put a hand over her eyes and shook her head. When did becoming a cyber-prostitute seem like the best possible option for her?

When she'd started this whole E-celeb thing, she didn't have to be slutty or sexy or anything like that to make a living. It was enough back then just to be adorable and talk about nothing to a webcam. The views and ad revenue would come as sure as the collabs and pervy comments.

She wondered again if her looks were starting to go. And, briefly, she thought if she looked as good as a girl like Chloe, this would all be so much easier. Thinking about it all made her feel like she was going to have another panic attack. But she gathered herself and stifled it.

Finally, after nearly an hour, Kate heard the water turn off. A few minutes after that, Chloe appeared in the living room again, only now she was wearing nothing but a very small towel wrapped around her body. Kate immediately felt her face get hot.

"Chloe, what are you _doing,_" Kate said, turning her head away and cupping her hands over her eyes.

"I hate to be a bother, but I didn't have any clean clothes to change into."

Chloe came and casually sat down on the couch next to Kate. Kate moved all the way to the other end of the couch. Now her face was buried in a pillow. She said something that was too muffled by the pillow for Chloe to understand.

"What?" Chloe said. "What's wrong with you?" she sounded genuinely baffled. She scooted closer to Kate and put a hand on her shoulder. "Are you having another panic attack?"

Kate tensed up even more upon having Chloe touch her. Then Chloe looked down at herself. "Oh, right," she said. "I almost forgot you're one of those conservative Christian chicks. You know, just seeing a naked girl isn't going to make you gay or something." Chloe laughed.

Kate lifted her face from the pillow but still kept her head turned away.

"I'm not worried about _that_," she said. "Besides, it's weird just to walk out naked in front of someone like that."

"I'm not completely naked," Chloe said, tugging at the towel. "Besides we're both girls. What's the big deal? Haven't you ever been in a locker room with other girls before?"

"This is my apartment, not a locker room!"

"You're really uptight, aren't you?" Chloe said with another laugh.

"Look, I have clothes in my room you can borrow. And we can go shopping for your own stuff later... I guess. Just go put something on, _please._"

"Okay, I'm going, I'm going." Chloe stood up from the couch and began heading toward Kate's room. She stopped and added, "But you know, if we're going to be roommates, we're probably going to end up seeing each other naked at _some point. _Might as well get it over with now."

A towel flew across the room and landed on the couch beside Kate. Kate let out a little scream and clenched her eyes shut as tight as she could and covered her head with her hands as though she'd just had a live grenade hurled at her.

Chloe returned to the room some minutes later wearing a pair of Kate's yoga pants and one of her boy's video game shirts. The yoga pants were skin tight on her and not long enough to reach her ankles, but the Overwatch shirt fit her okay.

"Man, do you have any pants that aren't from Baby Gap?" Chloe asked, tugging uncomfortably at the crotch of the yoga pants. "I couldn't button up any of your jeans, so I had to wear these."

"I guess you are a lot taller than me, aren't you?" Kate asked, examining Chloe from across the room.

"That's an understatement. These pants are ridiculous. I really need some new clothes if I'm going to be here a while. I wasn't even going to _try_ to fit into one of your tiny ass bras, so I'm kind of going commando on both ends right now."

"Oookay," Kate said, "Way too much information."

"Yeah you're really going to have to learn to talk shit if we're going to get along." Chloe sat down next to Kate on the couch.

"I can talk some... crap, okay? I just have to get to know somebody first before I can really talk to them."

"Yeah?" Chloe asked. "I'd like to get to know you." She looked across the couch at Kate with a warm smile and held a long gaze. Kate made eye-contact with her then immediately looked down. It was kind of hard to look at her, Kate realized.

Chloe was smoldering and beautiful. Even more so just out of the shower with her hair all down and wet. Sometimes it could be hard to look at a really pretty girl like that for too long without feeling totally insecure and weird.

"Well..." Kate said, fidgeting with her hands in her lap now. "You should know, I can be kind of awkward at first. I'm really bad at conversation. It's not that I'm shy or anything like that... I just find it hard to get know someone. I'm a total introvert."

Chloe nodded. "You're a little bit shy."

"_No_," Kate said defensively. "I'm just introverted. There's a difference between being introverted and shy."

"Not really," Chloe mused. "That's just something shy people say. I mean I can read you in a way you can't read yourself, because you can't really look at yourself. If you could see yourself, you would see that you're totally shy. Okay, that sounded like total stoner talk but you get what I mean."

Kate pouted. "Okay, maybe I'm a _little _bit shy at first, if you want to call it that..."

"I do," Chloe interjected.

"But that doesn't mean... I'm, like, _afraid_ of talking to people or something."

Chloe let out a light laugh and stared at Kate for a while.

"What?" Kate asked, her face red, still unable to hold eye-contact with Chloe.

"I think I already like you," Chloe responded. "You're kind of funny."

Kate swallowed and fidgeted with her hands in her lap again. "Thanks... I guess." Chloe kept staring and smiling. Kate kept looking at her lap. Kate went on,

"And what about you? Am I really supposed to believe you just came out of a video game, and you're really Chloe from _Life is Strange_?"

Chloe sighed and looked away. "All I know is I'm Chloe Price from Arcadia Bay." She shrugged. "I mean... how do you think I feel? My best friend just sacrificed me to save the world and then I wake up in a totally _different_ world... I've been through so much these last few weeks, I don't even know _what's _real anymore. I guess I just have to go with it at this point."

Kate shook her head. "It's just... the implications of that... if you're telling the truth. I don't even know what it means. Things like that just don't happen..."

"I know how you feel," Chloe said, looking sympathetically at Kate. "I found out my best friend has superpowers, then I find out my whole life is apparently a video game in some other dimension. This is all a total mind-fuck."

"Maybe I _should _take a hit," Kate said, mostly to herself.

"Really?" Chloe responded, her face lighting up.

"No!"

Chloe frowned.


End file.
